Editor
Hon. Robert H. Downer, Jr., General District Court Chief Judge Sixteenth Judicial District / Charlottesville (Expand/Collapse Bio)
Judge Robert H. Downer, Jr., co-editor of this book, has been a general district court judge for the Sixteenth Judicial District since June 1, 2001 and has served as chief judge of the district since July 1, 2005. Judge Downer presides in the City of Charlottesville four days each week and in Albemarle County at least once a week. Before being elected as judge by the General Assembly, Judge Downer was engaged in the general practice of law with the law firm of Boyle and Bain, later known as Boyle, Bain and Downer, for 25 years. Judge Downer is a graduate of the University of Virginia, earning his B.A. in 1970 and his J.D. in 1976. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar, The Virginia Bar Association, and the Virginia Association of District Court Judges. Judge Downer is a member and past president of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association and is also a member and past president of the Thomas Jefferson Inn of Court. He serves on the board of the James River Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program. He has previously served on the Judicial Conduct Committee, the Law Revision Committee, and the Education Committee of the Judicial Conference of Virginia for District Courts. He also serves as a Mentor Judge.
Hon. G. Barton Chucker, General District Court Chief Judge Fourteenth Judicial District / Henrico (Expand/Collapse Bio)
G. Barton Chucker, co-editor of this book, is the chief judge of the general district court for the Fourteenth Judicial District, serving in Henrico. Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Chucker was a partner with the law firm of Chucker & Reibach in Richmond where he focused his practice on the defense of drunk driving and traffic violations. He served for seven years as Special Counsel to the Courts of Justice Committee for the Virginia House of Delegates. Judge Chucker was a member of the 2004 Faculty of the General District Court Judges Conference as well as the 2004, 2006, and 2012 Judicial Transportation Safety Conferences. He authored Defending DUI Cases in Virginia: A Practical Approach, published in the Journal of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, October 2003. Judge Chucker also served as co-counsel to the House Subcommittee on Crime in connection with the proposed 2004 DUI legislation.
Timothy C. Carwile, Allen & Carwile, PC / Waynesboro (Expand/Collapse Bio)
Timothy C. Carwile, co-editor of this book and author of Chapter 4, lives and practices law in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and is a principal in the firm of Allen & Carwile, PC, in Waynesboro. He holds a B.A. in English from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from the T.C. Williams School of Law of the University of Richmond. Mr. Carwile was a prosecutor for eight years in Waynesboro before concentrating on criminal defense work. He is a former president of the Augusta County-Staunton-Waynesboro Bar Association and a former member of the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education Committee appointed by the Virginia Supreme Court. He currently serves the Virginia State Bar as chair of its Eighth District Ethics Committee and the Augusta County Circuit Court as Commissioner; he is also a Substitute District Court Judge and has been recognized by a Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating as an “AV Preeminent” attorney. Mr. Carwile has frequently lectured to law enforcement and legal organizations on various criminal law topics, including DUI and traffic defense and prosecution.
Authors
J. Burkhardt Beale, Boone Beale, PLLC / Woodbridge (Expand/Collapse Bio)
J. Burkhardt Beale, co-author of Chapter 5, is the CEO of the firm Boone Beale, PLLC. Mr. Beale’s primary areas of practice are driving while under the influence and criminal defense. He earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from Washington and Lee University. Mr. Beale is admitted to practice in all Virginia courts and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He is a member of the Criminal Law Section of the Virginia State Bar, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, and the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He is also a lifetime member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, a founding member of the National College for DUI Defense (NCDD), and a founding member of the DUI Defense Lawyers Association (DUIDLA). Mr. Beale has lectured for Virginia CLE since 1989 on evidence in DUI cases. He has also spoken at several national CLE conferences on DUI defense in Georgia, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. His personal training includes certification as an instructor on the NHTSA standards on field sobriety testing and as an operator of the Intoxilyzer 5000 and the Intox EC/IR II.
Patrick M. Blanch, Elders, Zinicola, Blanch & Overand, PLLC / Fairfax and Leesburg (Expand/Collapse Bio)
Patrick M. Blanch, author of Chapter 2, is a member of Elders, Zinicola, Blanch & Overand, PLLC, which has offices in Fairfax and Leesburg, Virginia. Mr. Blanch’s practice focuses on criminal defense and appellate practice. He graduated with a B.A. from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and earned his J.D. from the George Washington University School of Law. Mr. Blanch is a member of the Fairfax Bar Association and is a frequent speaker on criminal law in Virginia.
G. Manoli Loupassi, The Law Office of G. Manoli Loupassi, LLC / Richmond (Expand/Collapse Bio)
G. Manoli Loupassi, co-author of Chapter 5, is the principal for the Law Office of G. Manoli Loupassi, LLC, and practices law in the greater Richmond area. He previously was an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in the City of Richmond and also in Hanover County. Mr. Loupassi is the former Special Counsel to the Richmond Metropolitan Multijurisdictional Grand Jury, where he investigated and prosecuted cross-jurisdictional narcotics conspiracies and public corruption. He began his legal career as a judicial law clerk in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond for the Honorable James B. Wilkinson. Mr. Loupassi earned a B.A. from Washington and Lee University and a J.D. from T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond. He has repeatedly been recognized in Virginia Business magazine by his peers as one of Virginia’s “Legal Elite” for his work in the areas of criminal and traffic defense. Mr. Loupassi has also been named a Super Lawyer by Thomson Reuters in the area of criminal defense.
Since 2015, Mr. Loupassi has served on the Board of Governors of the Virginia Bar Association and is a member of the John Marshall Inns of Court. In addition, he serves on the Criminal Law Section of The Virginia Bar Association.
Mr. Loupassi served as a member of the Richmond City Council for four years, as Chairman of the Richmond Public Safety Committee, and as president of the Richmond City Council for two years. He currently serves in the House of Delegates as Delegate for the 68th District and is on the Courts of Justice Committee, the State Crime Commission, and is the chair of the House Courts Judicial Selection Committee. In 2012, Mr. Loupassi sponsored legislation codifying the Commonwealth’s Rules of Evidence.
Hon. Matthew D. Nelson, General District Court Judge Twelfth Judicial District / Chesterfield County and Colonial Heights (Expand/Collapse Bio)
Matthew D. Nelson, author of Chapter 8, is a General District Court Judge in the Twelfth Judicial District, which serves the County of Chesterfield and the City of Colonial Heights. Before being appointed to the bench, he was a partner with the law firm of Caddell Nelson & Reibach in Richmond, Virginia. His law practice focused on the defense of drunk driving and traffic violations. Judge Nelson also served as Special Counsel to the Courts of Justice Committee for the Virginia House of Delegates. He is the co-author of A Balanced DUI Defense Strategy: The Three Pronged Method, published in The Journal of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, Volume 22 Number 3 (2010). Before becoming a judge, he was consulted by the media as an expert in traffic law and was a speaker for the Virginia CLE program DUI and Other Serious Traffic Offenses.
David A. Oblon, Albo & Oblon, LLP / Arlington (Expand/Collapse Bio)
David A. Oblon, co-author of Chapter 1 and author of Chapter 7, is a founding partner of Albo & Oblon, LLP. Mr. Oblon regularly litigates civil and criminal matters in the state and federal courts of Virginia. His emphasis is on criminal law, constitutional law, employment law, and civil business litigation. He is licensed to practice law in Virginia and the District of Columbia. A nationally known lawyer, Mr. Oblon previously has appeared almost 100 times as a legal analyst on networks such as FOX News and CNN. He is a prolific continuing legal education lecturer and regularly teaches his practice areas to other lawyers and judges. He was named one of the D.C. area’s “Best Lawyers” by Washingtonian magazine, one of Virginia’s “Legal Elite” by Virginia Business magazine, and one of the region’s “Top Criminal Lawyers” by Northern Virginia magazine. Virginia Lawyers Weekly called him one of Virginia’s “Leaders in the Law,” and he was recognized as a “Super Lawyer” by Law and Politics. Mr. Oblon earned his J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law and his B.A. from George Washington University.
Rhonda Quagliana, St. John, Bowling, Lawrence & Quagliana, LLP / Charlottesville (Expand/Collapse Bio)
Rhonda Quagliana, author of Chapter 3, received both her Ph.D. and law degrees from the University of Virginia and her undergraduate degree from Tulane University. She is a partner with St. John, Bowling, Lawrence & Quagliana, LLP, a litigation and business transaction firm that represents clients in state and federal courts in a variety of matters. Her general litigation practice includes an emphasis on complex civil and criminal cases. She is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Virginia School of Law where she teaches trial advocacy. Ms. Quagliana serves as a substitute judge in General District and Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Courts of the Sixteenth Judicial District.
Ms. Quagliana has lectured on a number of topics, including the effective use of voir dire in criminal trials, litigating death penalty cases, and the importance of pro-bono efforts by attorneys in their communities. She has authored materials on such subjects as the recovery of damages in Virginia courts and criminal procedure.
Donald S. Sawicki / Saint Louis (Expand/Collapse Bio)
Donald S. Sawicki is the author of Chapter 6. His radar experience includes working for major defense contractors, such as McDonnell Aircraft Company, Emerson Electric Company, and Hughes Aircraft Company, with experience in system engineering, integration, and compatibility for multi-mode radars on high-performance aircraft, such as the Northrop F-5 Tiger (APQ-157/159 radars), the McDonnell F-15 Eagle (APG-63/70 radars) and F/A-18 Hornet (APGABOUT 65 radar). Presentations include speaking at the 35th Annual Tri-Service Radar Symposium, June 1989 (United States Military Academy, West Point, New York). Mr. Sawicki graduated from the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE). He is the author of the Police Traffic Radar Handbook (www.CopRadar.com).
Ronald E. Smith, Lawrence, Smith & Gardner / Fairfax (Expand/Collapse Bio)
Ronald E. Smith, co-author of Chapter 1, is a partner at Lawrence, Smith & Gardner and has practiced criminal and traffic law for over 30 years. Mr. Smith’s undergraduate degree is from LaSalle University, with post-graduate studies at Manhattan College, Georgetown University, and American University resulting in a Master of Arts degree. He is a graduate of the George Mason School of Law. Additionally, he served as an attorney with the transition team in the office of then President-elect Ronald Reagan and as an administrative hearing officer for the Virginia Supreme Court. Mr. Smith was the 2001 recipient of the Patrick Henry Award for his unwavering commitment to the legal profession. He is a frequent CLE lecturer on criminal and DWI/traffic law for the Virginia State Bar and Fairfax Bar Association, where he has sat on the General District Court committee.